EIGHTH-GRADE HEGEL-MARX RE-MIX Thesis, that’s the tea sis, Antithesis, that’s a dream sis, Synthesis, put back the pieces. MARX There was this idealist guy, He had big thoughts the arc of human history, But their origins are still a big fat mystery. Your thesis antithesis is really confusing, ’Cause the common proletariat would still be losing. Your thesis antithesis is really confusing, ’Cause the wretched masses would still be losing. HEGEL But ideas are the fruit of human existence, For they will move us far, far into the distance. Also, your ideas are great but not many see That you got all your ideas straight from me. MARX In the end all I want is for the workers to rise, And for the world’s social structure to reorganize. Gentlemen, in the long arc of your lives, you are about to leave the two stairwells that bracket Cathedral School. But the stairwell of the heart you are going to take with you. It is your gift from this School. May light always shine upon your feet. God bless you, God bless Grace Cathedral, and God bless CSB.
At this School though, there is yet another stairwell. It’s not hard to find, but you have to look for it. You have to want to see it. This one, by nature, is not well lit. You need a light to find your footing. It is the stairwell of the heart; the one we climb in order to become the human being we are meant to be; the humanity God would have us be. This School tries its utmost to shine that light. One hundred chapels a year each of us attends. We’ve reflected on that a lot in the latter chapels, so we won’t dwell there now. But let’s go to what you’ve been waiting for. A show of hands—who has at some point enjoyed Veggie Tales ? Everyone! Those crazy vegetables: Bob the tomato, Larry the cucumber, the asparagus guy—he takes many roles, he’s a method actor. What do The Fib From Outer Space, Socrates, and Jesus have in common? Truth matters. The purple blob which got bigger and bigger each time a lie was repeated, until it was a Godzilla- sized devouring monster? The only way it could be destroyed was to finally tell the truth. Socrates said “the truth is out there, and a good government must have a healthy relationship with the truth.” Jesus said “the truth shall set you free.” Otherwise, you are a prisoner to the webs and spirals of untruths. What do Moses, Odysseus, and Hegel have in common? Now I know most everyone knows the first two, but who the *&^% is Hegel? The answer is all three played the long game. Moses spent 40 years in the wilderness and did not step into the Promised Land; he could only look at it from atop a high hill before he died of old age. Odysseus spent ten years in the bloody Trojan War and then another ten wandering around the Mediterranean, falling prey to sorcerers, temptations, and sea monsters before he could get home and be with his family. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was the nineteenth century German philosopher of history who said history has a propulsive forward drive of its own, in spite of us, caused by a Dialectic of Ideas. And boys, you know how the Dialectic works: “Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis.” I had so much fun reading and watching your rap-offs between Hegel and his disciple, Karl Marx who took up Hegel’s theory of history, except that he asserted that Dialectic was fueled by economics rather than ideas. I loved your raps so much that I made my own re-mix of them. And yes, I’m about to share it with you!
36 | CATHEDRAL SCHOOL FOR BOYS
FALL 2019 • RED & GOLD | 37
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